The removal of price tags, stickers, tapes, labels, etc. has long been recognized as an aggravating and frustrating problem, and several patents have been issued for purported solutions to the problem. None of the purported solutions have heretofore been satisfactory.
The problem arises for consumers, for example, when giving a gift and it is desired to remove the price tag from the package or gift. The problem arises in businesses, for example, when it becomes necessary for a retailer to remove price tags from a plurality of packages of merchandise because of a change in the price of that merchandise, or when it becomes necessary for a manufacturer or dealer to remove stickers or labels from a plurality of packages returned by a retailer.
The nature of the problem is that it is difficult to remove a pressure sensitive sticker without undesirably disturbing the substrate; and this problem, for the consumer, was intentionally developed at great cost to the sticker manufacturers to insure their customers, the retail trade, that their in-house applied price tags could not be removed by unscrupulous persons, without notice.